The present invention relates to a drive arrangement for at least one smart card holder, the holder being arranged in a tachograph. The drive arrangement is arranged so as to move a smart card to the removal position, and includes: a reversible actuating motor, a control slide which is operatively connected by a transmission to the actuating motor, and transmission means which are provided between the control slide and the smart card holder.
Tachographs of this generic type are generally designed as built-in units with a flat, cuboid built-in housing. There is therefore very little physical space available from the start for a smart card holder and its drive means. This results in a smart card which is located in the read/write position being moved to the removal position. On the other hand, smart cards which have been deformed during their use, for example by being curved or rippled, particularly when they have been inserted into the read/write position exclusively by hand, with the necessary amount of force being applied, result in a considerable amount of force being required in order to allow them to be transported to the removal position again. This force requirement must be applied and transmitted by the drive means, thus necessitating a robust design and hence sufficient physical space. Furthermore, on the one hand owing to the small physical height required by the tachograph and on the other hand owing to the need to make contact, it is also expedient to associate the smart card holder and the drive means directly with the printed circuit board of the tachograph. However, even though it is designed to largely fill the format of the outline of the tachograph housing, there is a considerable lack of space available on the printed circuit board owing to the high component density, so that an arrangement of the smart card holder and of its drive means that is still possible generally necessitates a change in the direction of the thrust force which is exerted by the control slide. This is particularly true in the case of a tachograph which is equipped for simultaneous recording of at least the work and rest times of the driver and co-driver, and in which two smart card holders are provided and in the end, furthermore, only a single actuating motor must be provided, for cost reasons, by means of which the smart card for the driver or that for the co-driver must be transported to the respective removal position with the interposition of transmission means which change the direction of the force flow.
A drive arrangement which is known in this context from German Utility Model 200 15 100.2 envisages belt-driven means between a control slide, which is driven by an actuating motor, and the carriages which are mounted in the relevant smart card holders and are associated with the smart cards, in order to change the direction of the movement of the control slide to the direction for emitting the smart cards. Owing to the high friction losses resulting from transverse forces and the system-dependent force distribution, such transmission means necessitate an increase in the power of the actuating motor and, owing to the necessary guidance accuracy of the components on which the belt-drive elements are formed, result in a very high degree of manufacturing effort, and occupy considerable physical space.